RIGHTS TO HISTORY
It's just as naive to talk about human rights as it's realistic to talk
about history rights. An outstanding
case in point is Saddam Hussien. On Chinese TV, he's a good
guy. Back to America, bad guy. Recent court action showed
him actually ok. Then the latest CNN Special convicted him, based
on America's self-serving rights to history. This case might have
been
closed for me, had not for the lingering memory of an evil empire's
turning teddy bear overnight.
It seems it was never history, but the rights to tell it that form our
impression of the world.
With the recent controversy involving China and Japan each
writing their own version of history, some intervention by the
international community is needed to settle this question of history
rights. Obvious it would be best, with respect to conflict of
interests, the rights for any country to tell his own history, or his
story, should be taken away from him. But countries have known to
go to
war to defend such rights. In fact, the prize for winning wars is
exactly such rights. And the most barbaric of the barbarians
always the ones that won wars.
Since national self-interests have twisted and turned history pretty
much beyond
recognition, we need to ask us the tough question: do we really
care that much about history? Instead of risking letting
the
falsified past to dictate a disastrous future, shouldnt we repackage it
to welcome the best possible future we can envision? There is
no
reason we cant do that, really. Who's the boss here, anyway?